We can't wait until later in life to do the things that we already know that we need to do - travel, take risks, spend time with family, see new things ...
Haiku:
don’t wait 80 years
to do the important things
that make life worthwhile
No Regret! Pursue happiness now!
Hi -- Marc with the Gunnar Project -- again the mission of the Gunnar Project is to inspire and teach people how to pursue happiness, kind of in every day, and in everyday life.
One of the things, another kind of paradox that I’ve discovered as I’ve gone through a lot of this research and talked to thousands of people over this past year is that we all have a pretty good feeling for what we should be doing right now, and I think the best way to illustrate this is to talk a little bit about an exercise that we occasionally do, and I invite you to do this exercise at the same time:
Imagine that you’re sitting on the porch or on steps with an elderly person, right, this person is maybe 85 years old, 90 years old. They’re somebody who you respect, they’ve been sort of through the battles, and they’ve been through the wars, right, and they’ve led a very robust life. They’re sitting here on the porch and they’re going to tell you, you know, the 3, or 4, or 5 things that they’ve learned over the course of their life -- things that they may have done differently.
What I do, is I asked the groups that we work with, and I’m asking you to do this with me now, to come up with that list -- what is that elderly person going to tell you? What are going to be their sort of nuggets for advice? The interesting thing with this is that when we’ve gotten together with groups, and these groups have ranged anywhere from like 7th graders, 9th graders, High School kids, a lot of College kids, and even some adult groups that we’ve talked to -- the list that they come up with for these little nuggets of advice is an incredible, unbelievably insightful list. They’re kind of just naming off all the things one by one:
I should have spent more time with my family…
I didn’t need to spend so much time working…
I didn’t need to spend so much time watching TV…
I should have spent more time and spent my money on experiences and travel and seeing new things and being part of new things, versus buying expensive stuff…
All of these different ideas are just incredibly insightful ideas. The question that I have, and the sort of paradox with this is, if as a 7th grader, or a 9th grader, or somebody who’s in College -- if you already know all these things, don’t be that person who’s going to look back on their life when they’re 40, and say “gol darnit, I missed out! I really should have spent more time with my family and I should have traveled more, and I should have taken more risks!” Right?
We all know these things right now! You know exactly the kinds of things that you should be doing, you know exactly the kinds of things that are going to cause you regret, in 20 years, or 30 years, or 40 years, so do them right now! Jump out and make a commitment to doing those things that you really know you should do -- those things that that elderly person is going to tell you, looking back on their life and say “You gotta go out there and do those things!” We all know those things, and for some reason, we don’t jump on those and we’re not actively pursuing those every day. And this is part of this idea of actively and intentionally pursuing happiness every day -- which again is the missing of the Gunnar Project.
Again, thanks for listening, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye.